Got Your Back
by Mindy35
Summary: Jack/Liz. Liz has got Jack's back.


Title: Got Your Back

Author: Mindy

Rating: K

Disclaimer: Tina's.

Spoilers: "Stone Mountain", "Audition Day".

Pairing: Jack/Liz

Summary: Liz's got Jack's back. And vice versa.

-x-x-x-

Jack appeared in her doorway, agitated and itching. "Lemon. I need some of that empathy thing you do."

Liz leant back in her chair. "Ah-ha. So _now_ you want my empathy."

"Yes!"

She rose, pacing around the far side of her desk. "_Now_ you want me to be human, do you?"

"Yes, please!" he hissed desperately at her.

For a moment, she eyed him from afar. "What's in the bottle, Jack?"

Jack rolled his lips inward as he tilted the small, white bottle in his hand toward her, allowing her to squint at the label.

"Oh no!"

"Please, Lemon!"

"No, no!"

"_Please!_" Jack all but begged, expression wretched. "No one will touch me. Not even Jonathan, and he once offered to give me daily pedicures while I worked."

Liz huffed unwillingly. "Can't you hire a nurse or something to do that?"

"Of course I could. But it's too humiliating." He reached around himself, frantically scratching just above his butt. "And I can't take another second of this. I just need you to do my back. _Please_, Lemon, it's itching like a sonofabitch."

"But then I'll get them," she whined, nose scrunched.

"I brought gloves," Jack told her hopefully, pulling some from his pocket. "See?"

Liz blinked at the latex gloves dangling from his fingertips then shook her head. "This is so beyond, Jack. This is waaaay beyond the normal boundaries of friendship."

"I'd do it for you," he insisted.

She pulled a face at him. "No you wouldn't!"

"But you're a much better person than I am."

"I am?"

"Well…" Jack shrugged impatiently, clawing at the nape of his neck: "Perhaps not professionally or socially or intellectually. And you're certainly not--"

"Okay! That's…" she made a cutting gesture with her hand: "enough."

"But you're very good at the caring thing," Jack concluded, clicking the door shut and stepping further into her office. "I can even see you doing it. Right now. You've got that pathetic puppy dog look--"

"What?"

"Please, Lemon. _Please_." He moved in close, blue eyes glinting with desperation. He lowered his voice, holding out the little white bottle to her. "You care. I _know _you care."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine." And swiped the bottle off him. "Sit. No--!" She put out a hand to stop him contaminating her couch. "Not there. Here." She pulled a plastic seat from a corner and set it in the middle of the room. "I don't want to have to burn all my furniture after this."

"Why not?" Jack murmured, turning the chair around and straddling it. "You could stand to redecorate in here."

"Shut up," she answered, snapping on a glove. "And take off your shirt."

Jack nodded: "Yes, Ma'am." And obeyed, quickly unbuttoning and laying his shirt over his lap.

"Yikes…" she whispered at the scoured sight of him.

He half turned to look at her. "Is it bad?"

"No, it's not bad," she assured him, voice brisk and high-pitched: "It's fine, it's going to be fine."

She uncapped the bottle and dabbed some ointment onto a cotton wool swab he'd also brought. Then gently started to pat his tortured skin with it, starting at the ridge of his shoulder. Jack winced silently.

"Sorry," she mumbled, pausing before continuing to treat his scraped raw skin. "You know, you're supposed to try and not scratch, Jack. Didn't your mother ever tell you that?"

"My mother wasn't very empathetic when it came to illness," was his short reply.

"There's a shock."

"We weren't allowed to get sick," he added. "Ever."

Liz moved up to his neck with the cotton swab. "What do you mean weren't _allowed_?"

Jack sighed woefully. "We didn't have money for doctor's bills, so she would just feed us castor oil and goat's milk and scurvy grass and tell us to grow up."

Behind him, Liz straightened. "What's…scurvy grass?"

"I wish I knew."

"Hm. I guess that explains alot."

"Like?"

She collected some more ointment on the cotton wool and started dabbing the other side of him, progressing methodically but gently. "Like why you were such a douche to me when I was sick."

"I was in no way a douche," Jack scoffed, folding his arms on the back of the plastic chair. "I treated you exactly the way I always treat you."

"Nope," she answered smoothly. "You were meaner. And more annoying. Way more annoying."

"Perhaps you just had a shorter fuse because you weren't feeling well."

"Maybe," she said as she worked her way down his spine. "But you're supposed to be kinder to people when they're sick. Everyone knows that."

"I brought you ginger ale, didn't I? And patted your back."

"With a broom, Jack. Doesn't really count."

"Well, it was hardly my fault that you insisted on eating at Fatty Fat's Sandwich Ranch, now was it?"

"No," she sighed, adding sharply: "But you knew what chuckle was, didn't you?"

Jack was silent.

"Didn't you?" she demanded, glaring over his shoulder at him.

"I'm sorry Lemon," he murmured eventually in a voice that was as much a confession as it was an apology.

Liz humphed and kept dabbing. Jack winced and drew in a breath.

"You're right," he went on, tone brimming with remorse and empathy. "I should've been kinder. I should've patted you. With my hand. And I shouldn't have let you eat all that pig anus."

"Augh. Don't even--!"

"But this experience has changed me, I'm a changed man--"

"No, you're not." She rolled her eyes as she moved round in front of him. Then facing him, she peeled off the latex glove and dropped it in the trash. "Once the bedbugs are gone, you'll go back to being the same old douche you always were. And that's okay, because it's who you are. But…it is nice to know you're capable of a little human empathy."

Jack sniffed and rose, slipping his arms back into his shirt. Then stepping closer, he held both hands out at his sides, gazing at her all misty-eyed. "Any chance of a hug?"

Liz dipped her head once. "Absolutely none."

He hung his head, hands dropping back to his sides, shirt sagging open round his scratched-red gut.

"But, hey…"

He looked up.

She moved a little closer, socked him on the arm with her fist. "Hang in there, buddy."

He gasped in appreciation, covering the spot she'd touched with his own palm. "You just…_socked_ me without your glove on…!"

Liz shrugged, smiling. "Yeah." She waved a finger at him in warning: "So if I catch bedbugs now because of you, you will be doing my back. No excuses, Jack, and no complaints."

Jack began to re-button his shirt, tone waxing pensive: "After what I've been through these last couple of days, I'd do your ass if you asked me to."

Her brow crumpled. "I won't. But…thanks for the offer. It's nice to know you have my…butt."

Jack nodded sincerely. "Ditto, Lemon. Ditto."

She frowned, told him hastily: "I'm not doing your butt, Jack. So don't even ask."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good."

He smiled, heading for the door: "Thankyou Liz. I really appreciate this."

"Feels better?" she asked, pointing to his back.

"Absolutely." He stood taller, looking more like his usual douchey self. "I feel human again."

"Huh. Well…" She picked up the bottle from the edge of her desk and threw it to him. "I'm sure that'll pass."

_END._


End file.
